


Swelter

by enthugger



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hugs, James has a lot of feelings, M/M, Short, and Thomas deserves all the love, as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 20:22:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthugger/pseuds/enthugger
Summary: James wakes up and Thomas is gone.





	Swelter

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning, read [this](http://jamesflintmcgrawhamilton.tumblr.com/post/174850990098/imagine-the-first-time-after-the-reunion-that) post, and immediately had to write it. It's super short because it was originally on tumblr, just needed to get those Flinthamliton feels out again.

The heat is oppressive. A kind of sticky, all-consuming presence that forces itself at them from all sides. It’s the kind of heat that James is used to by now. The kind he used to deal with by ignoring it, or stripping down and climbing into his bunk and lying, useless, still, and languid, until a breeze picked up off the sea.

But he doesn’t mind the heat now. When he nods off to sleep with his head against Thomas’s chest, their bodies pressed limb to limb in the small bed they share. When Thomas walks up behind him as he’s cooking or reading, trails gentle fingers down his shoulder so as not to startle him, and then wraps strong arms around him from behind. When James trails his hand through Thomas’s sweaty hair. When they curl together, naked and out of breath and sweaty, James thinks he might kill the first person who tried to take this away.

He doesn’t think that need would come so fast, mere weeks after they’ve found each other.

When he imagines it, and he tries not to, it is violent. There are men bursting into the room, there is shouting, he places himself between them and Thomas. But when it happens, it’s silent, almost peaceful. He blinks for a moment in the early morning sun, and turns over, to face an empty stretch of bed beside him. It feels strangely cold, like a block of ice dropped in the pit of his stomach.

He sits up slowly. It’s a difficult process, to freeze your mind over once it’s already thawed. And he knows deep down, that he should have expected this. He let his guard down, he let Thomas down again. And now he’s gone.

He’s gone.

James’s breath hitches. He swallows down panic. He knows how this part works, has done it before, with blood streaming down to the end of his sword to coat his fingers. Sticky, like sweat.

He pauses on his way out only to find something to use as a weapon, a knife, a chair leg. Anything, really, for the people who have taken Thomas away from him again. The door creaks slightly as he pushes it open, but he figures it doesn’t matter if they hear him coming. It won’t help them.

And then he sees Thomas. He’s striding up the path towards their small home, shirt sleeves rolled up, a new blush of red from the sun spread across his cheeks. A small smile plays across his lips. He’s happy and alive. Thomas’s smile breaks into a grin when he sees James, and somewhere in the part of his brain that isn’t thinking about dropping a kitchen knife, James marvels at the way that just the sight of him can make Thomas smile. It scares him sometimes how much softness is still left in Thomas, after everything he’s been through. How quickly he was able to destroy that softness in himself.

The knife falls to the ground with a muffled thump on the sandy dirt ground.

When Thomas reaches his side in a few hurried strides, he has stopped smiling.

“I’m sorry,” James breathes, feels the way his hands are shaking and his vision is blurred, “I woke up and you were…I just assumed.”

Thomas opens his mouth to respond, but seems to think better of it. Instead he reaches out, his hands catching James’s forearms as he starts to tilt forward, unable or unwilling to bear his own weight anymore. James rests his forehead in the crook of Thomas’s neck, feels Thomas’s beard, scratchy and no longer new against the back of his neck. Soft lips graze his temple.

Their bodies are pressed together, limb against limb. He feels Thomas’s heartbeat where his hands are pressed against his chest, his gentle breaths against James’s ear.

The Georgia heat wraps around them like a blanket, warm, comforting, and something like home.


End file.
